| Du Kui | |||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 杜夔 | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 杜夔 | ||||||||
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| Gongliang (courtesy name) | |||||||||
| Chinese | 公良 | ||||||||
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Du Kui (fl. 180–225[1]),courtesy nameGongliang, was a musician and official who served under the warlordLiu Biao in the lateEastern Han dynasty of China. He served in the state ofCao Wei during theThree Kingdoms period.
Du Kui attempted to stopLiu Biao from performing imperial music in his own court. He was proficient in tuning the bells and other musical instruments expertise, but not in arrangement of dances and singing. With help from other court specialists, he researched old musical practices and texts and gained credit for "starting restoration of the ancient music" (yayue).[2]
While in the service of the warlordCao Cao, Du Kui got into an argument with Chai Yu (柴玉), a bell-caster. He had forced Chai Yu to recast the bell set several times for the lack of regular pitch.
Cao Cao's successor,Cao Pi, favoured Chai Yu. Under the pretext of Du Kui's discomfort with court music for entertainment (mouth organ and zithers), Cao Pi had him dismissed. Du Kui died soon afterwards.[3]
Liu Xie (465–522) praised Du Kui, along withFu Xuan (217-278) andZhang Hua (232–300), for "correcting Caos' mistakes" (wenxin diaolong).[1] ASong dynasty treatise byZhu Changwen mentioned that Du Kui had a son, Du Meng (杜孟). The information is nowhere corroborated.[3]
Du Kui's apprentice, Chen Qi (陳頎; or Chen Hang 陳頏),[4] was a mentor toXun Xu (died 289), the leading court musician underEmperor Wu of theJin dynasty.[5]